The shuttle doors slithered open and let a small 'ding' go off to let blind people know that they were open.
But Kochanski was not blind, so she thought it was redundant.
Four GELFs, all wearing white belts, surrounded her. The first one clambered aboard himself. Two at either side of her picked her up by her arms and carried her in. They were followed by the fourth.
"Now, now, boys, let's not be hasty about this. I'm sure I can walk myself. After all, it's not like my legs are broken."
The GELFs stared at her quizzically.
Kochanski laughed nervously as she looked between them. "Er, that wasn't a suggestion."
They shrugged and carried on.
She was plopped down on a small metallic chair. Four metal clamps sprang out and surrounded her wrists and ankles, effectively strapping her down. She looked around at all the GELFs that surrounded her. They took their own seats on the benches around her.
The High Priestess entered next. She hit the button that shut the door behind her. She then walked over towards the driver. "We'll be on our way to the ring now," she said.
The driver nodded and started up the shuttle. The craft vibrated for a few moments before slowly rising to the air and heading on it's way.
The Priestess then approached Kochanski.
"Your death shall be magnificant," she said. "The goddess Apearlo shall be most pleased with you."
"And that's what I've been trying to do. Please the invisible GELF Goddess," Kochanski replied dryly.
"And because you can not see her, you do not believe her?"
"Well, seeing does help the credibility, you must admit."
"How so?"
"Well, you know that suns exist, yes?"
"Of course. A gift from Apearlo to give us life."
"It's not going to be there forever. Eventually, it'll burn out."
"Perhaps, when Apearlo sees fit."
"How do you know the sun exists?"
"I see it every day!"
"Precisely. I believe we have sunlight. I can see where it's coming from. It helps the credibility."
"Point being?"
Kochanski sighed.
"Oh come now, child. Surely you understand belief."
"Yes. I used to believe and all that crap."
"What happened to your faith?"
"…He never showed up."
Blue Midget stomped through the marketplace, sending various creatures into a frenzy.
"How the hell are we supposed to use this thing to get to the other asteroid?" Cat demanded, trying to pay attention to his screen.
Rimmer's eyes flitted left and right behind the green visor of the helmet. He tried to see what options they had. "Holly? What can you get on this ship? What can we use?"
Holly did a complete scan over the ship, getting a look at every nook and cranny. "He didn't take the old engines out. Maybe we can transfer some fuel over to them," she said.
"We have plenty to spare," Kryten said. "We could give it a try."
"But then how do we start them up?" Lister inquired.
"Let's worry about that once we're out of town," Rimmer decided. "I'm not exactly up for GELF-kebabs right now."
"We're just going in a straight line. We need to turn somehow."
Rimmer growled slightly, feeling frustration growing in his head. He managed to find his way around the control panels and searched for something. He noticed two buttons side by side that had arrows that pointed left and right. Curious, he pressed down on the one pointing left.
Blue Midget lurched and suddenly began to track towards the left. The button was altering their course so long as he held it down. When he released it, he moved forward again. Feeling a bit more confident, he continued in that direction.
Rimmer tried to keep an eye on where he was going, attempting not to step on anyone. Fortunately, he was being given a pretty wide path, thanks to the lack of blindness in the citizens' terror. At last, he located the entry gate and smashed through it, sending wood splintering everywhere.
"There," he said. "Now let's find a field somewhere where we can do this."
"In that case, suggest you make a right turn, sir," Kryten advised.
Rimmer nodded and managed to make the ship change directions, heading out into the fields.
Just then, Holly appeared on the screen. "Chaps, we've got a visitor," she warned.
"Smeg, I hope we're not getting a ticket for stomping without a license," Rimmer mumbled. He stopped walking and looked around.
Lister checked the screens and tried to find where their visitor was.
Finally, the vidscreen in the cockpit showed them a Simulant with a piercing set of yellow eyes.
Everyone felt their stomachs flip over.
"Smeg…," Lister hissed fearfully.
"He's trying to talk to us," Holly said. "Shall I put him through?"
"Go for it, Hol."
A speaker crackled into life and a hissing, growling voice came through the grill.
"Going somewhere, my friends?"
Rimmer looked around the control panel for a button to press. He found the communications channel and flipped it on. A microphone dropped from the ceiling and hung in front of him.
"Er, don't mind us. We're just about to leave."
"You're not going anywhere, Dwarfers…"
Lister felt dread build up in his nerves.
"The Red Dwarf crew, consisting of one mechanoid, one hologram, one humanoid, and one human being. I greet you. My name is Scroop. I take it you mean to resuce Miss Kochanski?"
Rimmer swallowed. "Erm… Maybe?"
"I think not."
Cat snorted. "What's this guy gonna do? We're safe and sound in here! Let's just step on him and be on our way!"
But before anyone could say anything, a change seemed to come over Scroop. Suddenly, his arms were flipping over themselves, his legs were bending, he was suddenly on his knees, his legs were growing, the plates were flipping over to reveal rubber pads, his feet attached themselves at the rear, caterpillar treads were formed, they grew in humongous size, a pair of huge guns flipped out from under his shoulders, his arms bulked up and formed into a pair of razor-sharp claws that snapped open and closed, and he was finally a gigantic war machine with his head smack-dab in the middle, grinning an evil grin at them. He was now about as big as their ship.
Cat felt his confidence droop. "Never mind…," he whimpered. "How about we instead make like an Alaskan governor and split?"
For once deciding the Cat was on to something, Rimmer immediately started running on the platform, and Blue Midget followed in suit. Everyone was bounced in their seats, trying to keep from falling on the floor.
"You can run, but you can not hide!" Scroop yelled after them, laughing maniacally as he pursued them.
The shuttle touched down on outside a gigantic rock formation. The landscape was almost totally empty, and it looked like a small volcano from where they were.
Kochanski was led outside into the open air, and she took the view in.
"National Geographic would eat this up," she mused.
The GELFs took her by the arms and picked her up.
Kochanski saw a long line of GELFs were heading into the base of the mountain. "What're they all doing?" she asked.
"They are here to watch the ceremony," the High Priestess said. "It is a big part of our society."
"You're trying to have a serious religious ceremony and you're putting it out as entertainment, aren't you?"
"What slander! I'll have you know this is part of the tradition!"
Then they heard the voice of an announce coming from the mountain. "Please take your seats, everyone. The ceremony will begin in four hours. Get those cameras at the ready!"
Massive cheers erupted from the mountain.
The High Priestess glanced at Kochanski, who was raising a skeptical eyebrow.
"It's how Apearlo wants it," she said unconvincingly.
Rimmer gasped for air as he bounded along the asteroid's terrain.
They could still hear Scroop's mocking laughter echoing behind them as he reached out to them with his claws, his caterpillar treads kicking up grass and mud.
"These…boots…are very…constricting!" Rimmer gasped, trying to keep his head up.
"Keep it up, Rimmer!" Lister encouraged. "We'll figure this out!"
But Scroop was gaining.
"Alright, humies! Time to clock out!" he roared.
The two guns perched on his shoulders like parrots primed themselves up. They fired twin streaks of blue laser in their direction.
"Incoming fire!" Kryten shouted.
"What the smeg do we do?!" Rimmer shouted.
"Duck!" Lister shouted.
Rimmer wondered why he didn't think of that himself and immediately stopped running and crouched down, causing everyone else to fly up into the air as their ship suddenly bent down.
The aforementioned twin streaks of blue shot over them.
Rimmer then stood up and started running again.
"Ooh, boy, I think I feeling a Jackson Pollock coming on," Cat muttered.
"Sirs, I think I've just about found a way to transfer the fuel to the old rockets," Kryten said, looking up from his screens. "I'll just shift a small load over for a quick test."
"Go for it, Krytes," Lister said with a nod.
Kryten pressed a button.
"Fuel transfer complete, sirs."
"Now what do we do with it?" Rimmer demanded.
But his answer came in a different way than they expected.
Scroop was leveling his guns with them, and he immediately fired a shot at the old rockets in the back. The shot took them off guard, and Blue Midget took the hit in the rear. But just as Scroop was just about on them, the flame got to the small amount of fuel that Kryten had transferred, causing the ship to gear up and roar, giving off a huge amount of flame that hit the old simulant right in the face.
Scroop let out a blood-curdling scream as Blue Midget suddenly shot forwards through the air, but it was traveling straight ahead, jetting away from the Sim.
"Rimmer, do something!" Lister wailed.
"Oh, shall I? Very well, I'll just tell the ship to stop farting. How's that?" Rimmer shouted back, very annoyed.
Blue Midget shot forward through the air like a commuter train, wobbling slightly, looking like it was surfing as it tried to keep balance.
Up ahead, they could see a farm, and on that farm was the GELF farmer, who was working on plowing his fields with his large tractor. He looked up and saw a small blue bug getting larger and larger as it came.
"What the smeggin' tarnation…?" he breathed.
Realizing the blue bug was a ship that had no intention of stopping, the farmer abandoned his tractor and ran.
Kryten check the gauges. "Oh, sirs, good news: the fuel sample is depleted. We should recommence normal walking any second now."
But Rimmer was having trouble steering and he ended up landing on top of the tractor, which was surprisingly able to tolerate the weight of the large shuttlecraft and wobbled off down the farm, carrying Blue Midget like a child on a skateboard.
"Oh for pity's sake…," Rimmer wailed as he tried to balance on one foot.
Cat's screen began to flash. "Uh-oh. Buds, according to the desk, there's a large lake just ahead."
"So?"
"Says here it's got some sort of flammable substance in it. What's the word? It starts with an 'n'…?
"Rimmer, again, do something!"
"You're so bloody needy, you know that?!" Rimmer snapped, growing angrier.
But the lake was coming closer and closer.
Everyone searched their panels for some form of relief, but Lister found it in the shape of a button that a picture of a parachute on it. Almost before they hit the water, a giant parachute flew out of Blue Midget's back, and they were most pleased when it caught them and gently lifted them up off the tractor, which went sailing into the lake with a huge tidal wave.
Rimmer stumbled and staggered, and he almost sent Blue Midget into the drink herself, but he managed to restore balance, much to everyone's relief.
"Sweet smegging god…," Lister sighed, mopping his brow.